


a storm is brewing

by transjamesbarnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ? - Freeform, ??? - Freeform, Dissociation, Dysphoria, Gore, M/M, Self-Mutilation, hallucination, i mean its not rlly graphic or horrifying, i will gladly add tags if people want!!, idk - Freeform, mild psychological horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:51:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4182252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjamesbarnes/pseuds/transjamesbarnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first day of spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a storm is brewing

**Author's Note:**

> this is a gift for tumblr user jay offtide.tumblr.com, as its based off one of her pieces!!
> 
> http://offtide.tumblr.com/image/101554542897
> 
> hope i did your piece justice?!
> 
> go and tell her that she is amazing!! go!!!

It's the first day of spring.

The air is getting warmer by the day, beginning to get heavy with humidity and the threat of rain, but it seems clean. Not clean in the clinical way James has always associated with winter or cryo, but in the way that promises renewal, rebirth, rejuvenation. It is a bright, wet clean, rather than a dry, dull clean, and James welcomes it. He goes through as many comparisons as he can to separate the feeling of spring from the feeling of winter, compiling a list that he knows he'll be needing when things get overwhelming, the air too heavy and when rain isn't the only thing he feels threatened by.

Spring is sun, winter is clouds. Spring is bright purple and pleasing yellow and soft pinks, winter is deep blue and thick syrupy indigo and blinding white. Spring is how James' chest feels when Steve smiles, winter is how James' chest feels when Steve turns his back and hunches his shoulders. Spring is the feeling of grass on skin, winter is the flat of a blade.

It's the first day of spring.

The world is quieter than usual today; a storm is on its way, the edge of the first hurricane of the season about to hit New York and people are preparing, gathering things they think they'll need. James knows that while safety blankets and extra matches help others feel like they are safe, the hurricane is still going to tear the roofs off houses if it deems it necessary. It is relentless and excess casualties are not to be considered mission parameters and--

James ducks his head, lets his feet inch farther out from his body, lets himself take up more space. He is allowed.

Steve has been gone for three days, will be gone for at least two more, and James has remembered to eat when he's supposed to and has been getting 8 hours of sleep. He even napped yesterday, for 90 minutes because he felt tired after going out all morning and being around people. Steve would be pleased.

Steve isn't here though, and the physical dysphoria that has been eating away at the edges of James' consciousness all day is beginning to feel like an actual weight now, settling in the muscles of his shoulders and trickling down his spine. His body feels too small to contain the immensity of his being, the entirety of his pain and violence and emptiness swelling to a size that exceeds the boundaries of his skin. When Steve is around, all he needs is to do is let Steve's hands tuck James back into his skin. He always starts by holding James' face gently, then lets a hand slide lightly down James' throat. His hands trail down James' arms, over his abdomen and down the length of James' legs, until they hold his feet firmly, pressing the bottoms of them into the floor beneath him.

Steve isn't here though, and James feels like he's going to reach a point soon where he's either going to have to let his being melt out of him, seeping out of his pores and onto the hardwood floor under him or he's going to have to allow himself to expand the way he feels he needs to, letting his skin flay and fall away as he grows with the size of his self.

He tries to shake the thoughts about his dysphoria, tries to refocus and think about something else.

It's the first day of spring.

The birds are back, singing in a way that indicates that even though the storm is on its way, it is still a ways out. He trusts the birds more than he trusts Rich Carlyle from the weather network, and right now they are singing.

A blue jay is trilling in a nearby tree, switching between rapid clicking noises and the louder, shriller cries, two at a time and sharp. (The longer calls sound like what it feels like to break a bone in his hand.)

The barn swallows are something James remembers from before, mostly because Steve liked them so much. They're quick and tiny and brightly coloured, and Steve filled page after page of drawings of them. (They sound like a hoard of frightened people.)

A cardinal is conversing with another of its species, quick, staccato chirps that are loud, despite it maybe being a block or two away. (It sounds like bullets hitting metal.)

There is a thrush nearby too, and this one James lingers on. He and Steve would see these when they were younger, hopping around them in the hidden parts of Prospect Park. They'd make a day of it, putting their feet in the ponds and napping in the shade. These little hermit thrushes would bounce along around them, fluttering their wings huffily at them and darting off into the trees if one of them scared them away. (The calls sound like someone bending steel.)

He remembers how it was to hear bird calls when on a mission, and the memory has hooked itself into his mind before he can send it on its way, sinking its teeth in and he presses his feet harder to the floor, drops his head lower between his shoulders and rides the memory, zones out as best he can while he recalls having wasted a bullet from one of his handler's guns on a bird whose song reminded him too much of something he didn't know.

He lifts a hand to dig his nails into the back of his neck, not breaking the skin but very nearly doing so, trying to center himself back in his body, this body that is too small for him and this body that he wishes hadn't been forced to murder so many people and this body that is trembling now.

By the time he makes it back out of the haze, the sounds from the birds have died down, and the air has gotten heavier. He's not sure how much time has passed.

James takes a deep breath. 

It's the first day of spring.

Crocuses just started coming up, the day Steve left. Steve always liked crocuses, because they promised that winter was nearly over, that he need only make it through the next few weeks before he didn't have to worry about dying. James liked them too, because it meant that Steve only had to make it through the next few weeks before he didn't have to worry about dying.

It's the daffodils that James really likes, though, because they remind him of the first Steve he knew, small and bright and strong and with a head too big for his shoulders. He's fairly sure he remembers bringing a handful of them back to their apartment after work one day, out of breath because he'd stolen them from Mrs. Spinelli's garden and she'd caught him at it. Steve had chewed him out good, all while finding something appropriate to use as a vase.

The flowers will die, now, though. The storm will not spare them.

It's the first day of spring.

And James is clawing at the back of his neck, unable to drag himself out of the abyss that is his dysphoria and he knows he's leaving marks now, knows that he might go so far as to break the skin, let the pressure slide out of him and in a moment of dissociation he watches himself claw his skin open and let a cluster of flowers sprout up. He is unable to do anything but watch as his fingers press into the gash that has opened up at the top of his spine, spilling petals and tiny leaves instead of crimson blood and he is hallucinating and dissociating because maybe its been longer than he thought since he ate and drank and he is aware of this in some way, in a manner that is separate from the consciousness that is watching him pry open the gash until it slips open down the length of his spine and along his shoulders to reveal even more flowers, bright colors garish against his sallow skin and the darkness of the night that has fallen and he runs his fingers along the inside of the wound and feels soft grass and he pries the slit open along the vertebrae at the base of his skull and it's only the pang of worry that he feels when he imagines Steve coming home to see James split open from the base of his skull to the small of his back and along his shoulders, a cross on the back of his body that is spilling flowers, that settles him back into his body.

He realizes abruptly that he is bleeding but he doesn't tend to it right away, choosing instead to revel in disappearance of the dysphoria, likes the way he can lower his arm and enjoy the feeling of the muscles moving under his skin again.

The storm has arrived, and James smiles.

 

*****

 

When Steve returns, he runs his hands along James' skin the way he always does, but this time James doesn't feel desperate for it, doesn't feel like he needs Steve to press him back into his body.

He pulls James into a hug once he's satisfied, and one of his hands falls at the top of his spine, centered between his shoulder blades. James still has scars there from where he'd scraped at his skin until it came clean off, and Steve freezes when he feels them.

"James," he says, cautious, and James doesn't back down, lets Steve know that he can continue. "Why do you have scars on your back?"

James smiles wryly, reaching up to run revenant fingers over them. He doesn't want them to fade the rest of the way, wants to keep this evidence of... of something, of the fact that he was able to pull himself out of his dysphoria on his own, of the fact that he might be made up of more than violence.

"I pulled my skin apart and bled flowers, Steve," he says, watches as confusion and fear mingle on his face. Instead of waiting for the torrent of questions that is sure to follow this statement, James ducks his head to press his nose into the skin of Steve's neck, their non-verbal way of showing thanks, before going back to his bedroom.


End file.
